Churchill looked again. ‘Of course,’ he was saying, ‘there’s a limit to how much you can compensate for damage with mirrors, but as long as you can get a section of the twist lined up… Bob’s your uncle, if you’ll forgive the boast. It’s a lengthy process to be able to say a pair of bullets match, but a bit quicker to say they don’t. And these two don’t match at all. No doubt about it, fired by two different guns. The gun you brought me did not fire the fatal bullet.’
‘Would this hold up in court?’ Troy asked.
Churchill feigned outrage, ‘Mr Troy!’
‘Sorry-I’m being dense. What else can you tell me?’
‘Depends what you ‘want to know.’
‘Well… why didn’t the test bullet bend, why did it fire through five boxes when you estimated two?’
This did not seem to require any thought on Churchill’s part. The answer was on the tip of his tongue.
‘Granted identical weapons, I’m inclined to conclude a different load. The bullet that killed your chap was probably fired on a low load. A bullet designed for work at close quarters, but otherwise practically useless. In fact, about as effective as a popgun. That’s why it distorted when it hit bone and the test bullets didn’t when passing through oak. Of course, you’ll appreciate that oak and bone don’t behave exactly the same… but then… I don’t have a heap of skulls lying around just to test bullets.’
Troy was intrigued. ‘Why would anyone want a low load?’
‘Well,’ Churchill mused, ‘if you know what you’re doing with any handgun you won’t try and shoot someone at a hundred yards. You’d be better off at six feet. Most handguns outside the hands of marksmen are pretty inaccurate at much beyond a few feet. Jesse James once emptied his Colt.45 in a bank raid, at pretty well point blank range, and missed every time. So having to get in close is no real disadvantage-and you have the added bonus of knowing that you won’t kill the chap on the other side of your target by the bullet passing right through the target-and of course, “popgun” is really rather apt. That’s what it’d sound like, a sort of popping. You want to shoot some poor devil where there are likely to be people around… well, with any luck no-one would hear, and if they did they’d think little of it. A car backfiring would make a damn sight more noise.’
‘And is that in any way standard issue?’
‘To whom?’
‘American soldiers.’
‘No. Not at all. The gun itself isn’t standard-it’s all but obsolete, but it’s light and it’s small and I expect one or two might choose it for that reason. The standard issue is the M1911A1.45. And that’s made by Colt, not Smith and Wesson. Now, modified bullets, that is… shall we say… that is quite something. Low loads, soft heads, that sort of thing. That’s someone who really knows what he’s at. I’d say it was a professional’s choice-someone who carries a gun because he means to use it, not simply someone who’s issued with it as part of being a soldier-someone who kills professionally-and I don’t mean in the course of battle. I mean dirty work. All in all you got lucky, Sergeant Troy. If the man who modified this shell had also notched the head to make it fragment you’d’ve whistled for your match-and the professor here would be rooting around in the victim’s brains for half a dozen fragments of lead. All the king’s horses wouldn’t have put it back together then.’
‘So perhaps he wasn’t so professional after all?’
‘Don’t ask me too much about people, Mr Troy. It’s guns I know about.’
It seemed to Troy that Mr Churchill had been so long and so detailed in his report that if he, Troy, could only sum it up succinctly it would be the clearer to him, the clearer to everyone.
‘It’s an assassin’s weapon,’ he said at last.
‘Exactly,’ said Churchill.
‘Could we get this down on paper?’
Troy sat at a high, old Imperial typewriter, its roll more than a foot and a half across, and typed onto foolscap as Churchill dictated. When they were done Churchill shook his hand and Troy asked, ‘How much do I owe you?’
‘On the house, Mr Troy. Just remember me to your father, and remind him that he bought a gun off me in 1928. If he should ever choose to make it a pair…’
‘Of course,’ said Troy.
In the course of the last hour, Troy thought he had scarcely heard Kolankiewicz say so little. He ascribed it to professional courtesy in the presence of a master. Something he would never be in Kolankiewicz’s eyes. Kolankiewicz had him tagged as a ‘smartyarse’-not the same thing at all. Walking back to the Yard, Kolankiewicz had a simple question for Troy.
‘You picking this case up now?’
‘Picking it up?’
‘It is your clear intent to bump the idiot Nailer off the case. I merely enquired if you now proposed to appropriate it yourself.’
‘No-absolutely not. I’ve been trying to drop the damn thing not pick it up. And I don’t want to bump Nailer off it, I just want to get Cormack out. Once that’s done Nailer can find out who’s really done it.’
‘A pity. What this case needs is a real smartyarse.’
‘Not this smartyarse.’
‘Then you don’t want to know what I think next, do you?’
Troy thought about it.
‘No-I don’t. Tell it to Nailer.’
‘Your reluctance to stick your proboscis further into the death of old Stinker wouldn’t have anything to do with your hot/cold love affair with his delightful daughter, would it?’
That was the thing about Kolankiewicz-just when you thought you were home free he had another surprise for you.
§ 67
Troy had finished his paperwork. Later than he had hoped. He looked at his watch. Eight thirty. He opened the centre drawer of his desk and, as was his habit, dumped the day’s work into it in a single sweep of his arm. It would stop Onions reading what was on the pile if he happened to stroll in unannounced-exactly as he did now.
He parked himself by the unlit gas fire, a man who could never shake off the habit of winter, struck a match on the sole of one shoe and lit up a Woodbine.
‘Well,’ he said through a waft of cheap tobacco. ‘
‘Well? said Troy.
‘You did it. The American walks. The Major read your report and told Enoch to turn him loose. It’s not over, mind. We’ll want to know a thing or two from the Americans, when they get round to answering questions.’
‘Good,’ said Troy, hoping that was that and that he could just go home. But Stan was musing, drawing slowly on his fag and musing.
‘How do you see your career panning out, Freddie?’
It struck Troy as an odd enquiry. Untypical of Stan. Stan had picked Troy up from the Divisions, transferred him from Stepney to the Yard, made him a Sergeant at the age of twenty-four. He had every reason to be grateful to Stan. Stan was his career.
‘Dunno. I never think about it. I’m happy with you, if that’s what you mean? Happy in Murder.’
‘Happy in Murder,’ Onions mused. ‘I don’t think I’ve read that one.’
Troy smiled. Stan was right. He had inadvertently invented a very likely title for a whodunnit by one of those lady novelists who seemed to dominate the genre in the thirties.
‘I meant,’ he said, ‘that I’ve no desire to move.’
‘You don’t fancy a job in the Branch then?’
‘That’s the last thing I want.’
‘Just as well. You made several enemies today.’
Troy got the message. It wasn’t an enquiry, it wasn’t a ticking off, it wasn’t even a warning. It was a statement.
‘And I get the feeling they’ll not be the last you make on your way up.’
‘You’re unhappy with that?’
‘No. No. I backed you today. And I’ll back you when I think you’re right.’
Onions paused. The clincher could not now be far away.
‘But I’d be happier still if I thought you were telling me all you knew.’